Re-use / copy citation

Hi, I am trying to get my head around RM10 after some time of absence.

It seems the “Re-use / copy citation” feature is something new, other than than in RM7 the “memorize” source name/detail feature.

Now, if I want to reuse the same citation in amongst a list of several citations from the same source, how do I find them when entering a source to a fact? Right now I am directed to the Citation details panel which asks for a Citation Name. But I can’t see what I have already used other than going out of this page and look up the master source. And if I enter the same citation title, I’ll have it twice in my list as seperate citations (ok, I could merge them, but that’s probably not the master’s idea …)??

Does it mean that for any citation I want to re-use and that is different than the previously memorized, I have to go back to the Edit Citation panel?

Or do I miss something?

Many thanks, Gerhard

Two post- RM7 features come to mind that you might find useful:

  • The “Slide in Workflow” feature (enabled from the General Settings window) takes some getting used to but makes it much easier to edit citations especially when events have more than 1 citation.
  • The ability to continue to open other RM windows after going into the Edit Person screen (I believe the correct term is that RM8+ implement non-modal windows). This allows the opening of up to 3 Edit Person windows simultaneously or the ability to view the Sources menu and while also having an Edit Person window open. This feature will let you find the exact citation that you want and then use the copy/paste feature to the target person without having to close the target person’s Edit Person window. For example, in the scenario of a census where you know that the desired citation has already been used for a family member, you can open the Edit Person window of that family member, keep both Edit Person windows open and side by side, and then easily copy/reuse the census citation. Similarly, if you don’t know where to easily find the desired citation, then you can open the Source Menu to look for it. Whereas, in RM7, we had to close the Edit Person window to go find the citation.

If I understand your question correctly, yes, you can only memorize 1 citation at a time. So if you reuse a citation and then want to reuse a different citation, you need to go find that second citation and memorize it before trying to reuse it. With Slide in Workflow enabled you can memorize it from the “Citations” pane of the Edit Person Window. It’s 1 step easier with Slide in Workflow.

Here’s a way to think of it in RM7 terms. In RM7, you memorized a citation that you were planning to paste from somewhere on somebody’s Edit Person page.

You could then paste the citation to an additional fact for a person. For example, a citation for a Burial fact might include the person’s birth date and death date from their grave marker. So you might then memorize the citation for the Burial fact and paste it also to the person’s Birth and Death facts. You can still do the exact same thing in RM10.

Having memorized a citation, you might also then paste the exact same citation to facts for a totally different person. For example, if you memorized a citation for a Census fact for one family member, you might then paste the same citation to the same Census fact for other family members. You can still do the exact same thing in RM10.

None of this needs to involve the Citations Details panel. That’s another way to work in RM10 that wasn’t available in RM10. But you can keep doing it the way you have always done it. And for now, I will defer any discussion of why you might sometimes want to do it through the Citation Details panel.

One thing that definitely is different in RM10 is that at the time you do the Paste, you will be asked if you wish to reuse the citation or to copy the citation. Unless you are planning to copy a citation for one fact and to paste it for another citation as a way to start a new citation, you should always choose the Reuse option. If you need to make a correction or any other edit to a memorized and pasted citation in RM7, you had to go back to each and every place you pasted it to make the correction or other edit. In RM10, as long as you choose the Reuse option on the paste, you only have to make the correction or other edit to the citation once and it automatically applies to all the places the citation has been pasted.

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Thank you, Kevin and Jerry – this was helpful!